Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Ballad of Castle Reef

by Honor Tracy

General: The Barraclough's of Ireland, have been soldiers for centuries. Until the latest boy, Francis, decides to buck the tradition, and go "find himself" in Paris! this causes his orderly father quite a disturbance, so in order to teach his son a lesson and give him some respect for hard work and responsibility, he decides to turn their family home over to his trusted servant upon his death, until that fellow would die, then it would go back to the family. the father thinking his death would be far off, and his son would possibly come to his senses prior to these events ever occurring. However, Major Arthur meets an untimely death, and chaos ensues. Castle Reef, in the hands of Maguire, goes to the dogs. The remaining servants leave in a huff, Francis returns with his new bride in order to teach him how to maintain order, meanwhile, Maguire mistakenly is kidnapped by some group trying to extort a ransom. 

Thoughts: Nothing special. This whole book seemed written to give a message of don't use your will to try teaching a lesson that you'd like taught in your lifetime, because you might not live to see that lesson taught. It makes me wonder if there was a personal circumstance in this woman's life which was the springboard for this book, perhaps she (or a family member) had been written out of a will, just because she did something to upset a parent when she was young..... 

No comments:

Post a Comment